With your big-hearted support over the festive season in 2008, you helped organisations across South Africa to celebrate the true meaning Christmas by choosing gifts that change lives for good. Together, and with the support of the Cadiz Foundation, we raised R300,000 for projects in priority development sectors on our SA Social Investment Exchange (SASIX).

Make Christmas Matter 2008 helped to:

Boost basic healthcare

R 15,350 contributed towards the Hantam Community Education Trust which enabled health workers to run a family planning programme for 92 girls and women and conduct approximately 22 pregnancy tests over the year.

Improve education

R 66,250 allowed the Ntataise Trust to provide hands-on training to Early Childhood Development (ECD) practitioners and equip classrooms with learning resources that will create a more stimulating learning environment and improve the quality of ECD programmes in rural areas in the northern Free State.

Support animal protection

R 24,250 is helping CROW rehabilitate and release a troop of Chacma Baboons to a suitable site, sufficiently remote from human settlement. This will ensure that these animals are prepared for life in the wild, able to survive independently of human support and are able to breed successfully. The only alternative for displaced baboons in these places is a lifetime in captivity or euthanasia.

Care for Children

R 5,100 is contributing to the Hantam Community Education Trust and their immunisation programme. The project is expanding the Hantam clinic's reach and is enabling health workers to run an immunisation programme for 44 babies over a year, thus preventing the spread of common childhood illnesses.

R 23,200 has enabled the Little Elephant Training Centre for Early Education provide accredited training to 12 preschool teachers in deep rural areas thus enhancing the quality of education for children in remote communities.

R 39,400 has helped GAPA to expand its services and empower more grandmothers to cope with the affects of HIV/AIDS within their families and communities.

The balance of the money raised through Make Christmas Matter in 2008-2009 will be allocated to suitable SASIX projects as they are listed during the course of the year.